Pros & cons with giving out a lot of tracks quickly vs. giving out less tracks

[freddman]

There are some differences when seeing people doing releases today, some artists got several new tracks a month. Most of the time what I can see the "hardhitters" have releases once every 1-3 month and some even 1-2 tracks a year..Talking mostly originals here, but also in general work.

I have to say I appreciate tracks more from artist if they release tracks very unoften..Because then it becomes more precious and gets more valuable in some way..If you release all the time it kinda cheapens out your name in some way maybe?

But at the same time you need to keep your fanbase happy and deliver new stuff so to speak. What is a decent timeframe for you guys for releasing tracks and what do you see as most profitable both as an artist and economical?


p.s sry for my grammar, Im not english

[Alkamist]

I guess it really depends on how busy the artist/band is. If they are on tour a lot they have less time to crank out new material. As far as the most lucrative balance between touring and releasing new content, I have no idea on that

[login]

3 EP's a year seems optimal to mee, 4 tracks max each.

Too much stuff means it must be quite generic.

[Itsmorning]

I would say if someone is releasing more than one album/ep a year (two tops if they are short eps) then they didn't put enough effort into it or just beleive their shit doesn't stink therefore never filtering out the garbage tracks. We can all agree that we make songs we wish no one would ever hear. Now if your chugging out tracks at 5 per month then your diluting your own good tracks and feeding shit to everyone. I can't think of a single quality artist that puts out songs in the volumes you mention. If anyone can please enlighten me.

[Itsmorning]

Even more so, coming from a electronic music standpoint where experimenting is the gold standard, real quality doesn't just happen on back to back to back tracks. That's not how experimenting works in music or the real world. You have to fail alot to find that one diamond. Now what most artists do is they find that one diamond and ride the shit out of it for as long as they can.

[Itsmorning]

Now if you really want an album/track to take over the world follow these steps:

1. Make bomb diggity tracks
2. Release bomb diggity track
3. Bomb diggity track gets loved by a whole sleuth of underground fans
4. Sell out harder than you even know how to
5. Reach overflowing world popularity
6. Commit suicide or die of drug overdose
7. Forever be immortalized.

The end

[StringBean]

I think that's why lil wayne went from hip to straight up through

[Brian!]

I think it depends a lot on the kind of music you produce and the timing of your releases. If you're making EDM (hate this term) then you're going to have a more set release schedule based around particular events. You're not going to want to release a bunch of tracks right after WMC, for example.

As far as frequency goes, I think it really depends on what kind of image you want to cultivate for yourself as an artist. It's much harder to sustain a buzz without frequent releases now but I can think of several artists who release just a few songs a year and they're always looked forward to and played out all the time.

If you're thinking from a new artist perspective, I think you're almost forced to constantly churn things out in order to gain a significant presence and then you should be able to taper down a bit.

[Skept3k]

If you're a new upcoming artist, I feel like you really need to keep releasing just for a chance to get your name heard. If you're a new artist only putting out 1 EP a year, unless you're a gigging machine it's going to be so difficult to get noticed.

Once you've "made it" you have the ability to sit back in a way and wait for a good time to release your work, like right before starting a major tour. I'd say it depends on your style of music and whatever works best for the artist.

[AJ Reynolds]

i don't think it really matters if your a musical genius. if you make amazing music every week why not release it?

[Hollowman9]

its a toss up I'd say. People have very short attention spans. It seems the artists who are more prolific on SoundCloud seem to get all of the attention. Ones like me who take their time and only release a track every few months or so seem to get forgotten in the space between tracks. If I release a track I get a frenzy of SC followers and my project's public site traffic spikes. Then after a few weeks I lose almost as many followers on SC as I just got and the site goes inert traffic-wise until the next track comes up. Then it happens all over again.

I don't just pump out a bunch of material because my time is hard to free up but even when I have time I will sit on my tracks and work/re-work them until I am happy for weeks or even months. And the ones I don't put much time into I usually regret making public afterward....

[audioconsult]

Originally Posted by freddman

But at the same time you need to keep your fanbase happy and deliver new stuff so to speak.

you can keep your "fanbase" happy on soundcloud or alike when you wish, but you dont need to release everythig you do...when one of the private tracks is too hot to be private you will get to know that early enough.

[audioconsult]

Originally Posted by AJ Reynolds

i don't think it really matters if your a musical genius. if you make amazing music every week why not release it?

because it might be not so amazing after all when you overdo it?.. maybe better an album once in a while instaed flooding the market?
Every week is in any case too much. better have gigs every week and release more rarely.. and when you really feel so potent that you need to get it out..at least have multiple projects or colabs to keep it more intersting.

[AJ Reynolds]

Originally Posted by audioconsult

because it might be not so amazing after all when you overdo it?.. maybe better an album once in a while instaed flooding the market?
Every week is in any case too much. better have gigs every week and release more rarely.. and when you really feel so potent that you need to get it out..at least have multiple projects or colabs to keep it more intersting.

it depends if your a one trick pony. if all your tracks sound the same and this happens a lot in EDM than it's probably best you keep some of those tracks for your DJ set. after all you need a reason for people to come and hear you and having records nobody else has helps.

i agree a release every week is a bit much though. in the 70's you had artist releasing 3 or 4 albums a year, which probably is the same as an EP every month or so.

[msl]

Originally Posted by Skept3k

If you're a new upcoming artist, I feel like you really need to keep releasing just for a chance to get your name heard. If you're a new artist only putting out 1 EP a year, unless you're a gigging machine it's going to be so difficult to get noticed.

The above is very true, I'd say as an unknown artist you need 3 eps per year at least. However...

I believe in "quality over quantity" and as we all know there is a real problem with sub par releases flooding the market, because the barriers to distribution are non existent these days. So if you don't have those 3 high quality eps, your better off doing singles and remixes.


.

[blinky909]

Originally Posted by login

Too much stuff means it must be quite generic.

Pete Namlook, Oliver Lieb, and Richard H. Kirk would disagree with your conclusion

[djugel]

Yeah,... I dunno.

Some "techno" artists can really pump great stuff in large quantities. I personally loved when techno records had one "tone" to them. I don't mind if all the tracks on one record sounded very similar.... but yeah, .. multiple records sounding the same is an issue.

I used to think of techno records in color.
Outline - Blueprint #4 comes to mind.

It's blue..